


Days Along The Watchtower

by knittedsouls



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, Castiel Owns A Bed And Breakfast, Domestic Castiel/Dean Winchester, Fluff and Angst, M/M, No Smut, Slow Build Castiel/Dean Winchester, Slow Burn, They deserved better, Walks On The Shore
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-09-24
Updated: 2020-10-30
Packaged: 2021-03-07 19:54:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 5
Words: 4,910
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26633212
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/knittedsouls/pseuds/knittedsouls
Summary: Hope is a thriving community of 1,536, located seven miles from the shores of Penobscot Bay in the midcoast of Maine and on one of those shores is a small and mostly uneventful bed and breakfast owned by Castiel Novak, “The Watchtower”.
Relationships: Cassie Robinson/Dean Winchester, Castiel/Dean Winchester, Castiel/Inias (Supernatural), Castiel/Mick Davies, Charlie Bradbury/Jo Harvelle, Eileen Leahy/Sam Winchester
Kudos: 27





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> This idea has been in the back of my mind since a long time but I never really decided to actually lay it out in words. Mostly because it felt incomplete but now, I feel like it’s ready. So here’s a whole new world for Dean and Castiel to fall in love. 
> 
> This is gonna be angsty and insane with a side of fluff, so, apologies in advance.
> 
> I hope you enjoy yourselves along the ride.
> 
> Also, thank you Ree for being my beta!
> 
> Love, J.

__

The Watchtower was never in Castiel’s book of places to settle in but as they say, life takes you on journeys that you never imagine yourself going through,and so here he was, living in a small bed and breakfast with barely 5 rooms including the one for the owner, a kitchen and an almost dying garden in the back, built and run by his father for years on the rusty shores of Hope, Maine.

This was the exact place he ran away from when he turned 18.

That was 7 years ago.

Well, if he was being honest, he didn’t exactly run away but more like left for college. Just the difference in his case was he never came back. Not even for holidays. And of course, that wasn’t really pleasing to his father but after a few years of trying to lure Castiel back and officially make him the owner of their b&b, he gave up.

And Castiel didn’t care, he never wanted that anyways.

After completing his graduation degree, he settled down in New York with his college sweetheart, Inias Shurley. 

And it was good.

Life was good.

He was a moderately successful journalist, working his way up in ranks at the office while writing his own book in the shadows for years. While on the other hand, Inias was a struggling artist trying to find his own place in the world. 

He would be lying if he said it didn’t get rocky between them sometimes, especially with Inias’ struggles of trying to build a name for himself, there was a lot of frustration and heavy weight surrounding them a lot of days but they made it through.

They had each other and that was enough.

Until everything fell apart, like it always does.


	2. The Beginning

_“And sometimes it’s in the most unexpected times,  
when you meet the greatest people in your lives.”_

Everyday around 6 A.M. in the morning Castiel would go on his casual stroll around the shores of Canyon Lake behind the bed and breakfast and today was the same. He woke up pretty early, mostly because even after living here for about a year now, his sleep schedule has been disturbed to some crazy lengths. No matter how hard he tried, he could not sleep for more than 4 hours and that’s how this tradition of early morning walks began.

He pulls the sleeves of his oversized sweater down when a chill breeze of air flows from the Lake sending chills down his spine. 

After wandering around for a while he stops right in front of The Watchtower, not his bed and breakfast, but the actual one. The wood which holds the place together barely breathing in today’s weather and the single wind chime that some random traveller placed on top of it chiming loudly in the absolute silence of the land. 

He stares at it for a while wondering what this crappy little town would look like from high up there.

Would it still be the same rusty version of itself or the distance would make it look prettier?

Would it make it look not broken?

“Cas!”, a voice comes from behind him and he doesn’t have to turn around to know who it is.

“Mick.”, he says just when Mick catches up with him, appearing by his side, breathing heavily, “I told you, you don’t have to come with me every morning.”

Mick shrugs, “Well, I like coming with you.”

Castiel turns to look at him with an amused expression, “No, you don’t. You don’t even like waking up early alone, as coming for a walk in this chilly weather along the shore.”

“Okay, fine.”, Mick rolls his eyes, “But I like you.”

“Mick, I..”, he trails off at a loss of words before tearing his eyes away from him to make it easier, “I’m so sorry but I really am not ready for this. You- you know that.”

“Yes, of course, Cas. I’m not- Hey, look at me.”, and he obliges, “I’m not asking you for anything. I understand that you’re still not doing- um- very well, with everything and all I want to do is just be there for you.”

Castiel knows that Mick is extremely sincere about this but there was nothing in this world that could convince him now to let anyone do something nice to him, “You’re wasting your time.”

“No, I’m not.”, Mick says, “It’ll get better, Cas. It always gets better, trust me and let me do something as little as go on a stupid walk with you without you acting all pessimistic.”

Castiel heaves a heavy sigh, Mick is always just trying to help even when he pushed him away he would always come back and he wondered why someone would care for him the way this guy did. And he feels extremely guilty for treating him the way he does because it’s not fair.

“Okay.”, he says with a small, most probably unconvincing smile but Mick takes it.

“Alright, let’s go back now, okay? Time to open The Watchtower.”, Mick says with a smile and starts walking in the direction of the bed and breakfast with Castiel following closely behind.

After he came back from New York, Mick offered to help him out with running the place, given their childhood friendship it seemed like a good option and Castiel took the favor willingly. 

At this point after a whole year, Mick was mostly the one running the place while Castiel would just come of use only when they needed him for signing some papers as an owner. Other than that, all he did was mind the reception. 

He was grateful for having Mick by his side but sometimes it felt like he was putting too much on him just because he didn’t have it in him to go through the motions of life at this point. 

It wasn’t like he didn’t try.

He really did.

But the words in his father’s last letter haunted his days and night. 

With his brain running around with a million thoughts he doesn’t even realize when they actually reach their destination until Mick asks him for the key. 

“You know I’m pretty sure we’re gonna get some guests today.”, Mick says as he unlocks the hundred years old door.

Cas scoffs lightly, “You say that every single day and no one really steps their foot here.”

“Speaking into existence, Castiel.”, he says with a smirk and steps aside, urging him to go first.

The smell of lakeside still prevailed in the small lobby after years even though the bright blue colour of the walls representing them has faded with time. 

“I’ll go get changed.”, Cas says.

“Sure, I can look after reception until then.”, Mick nods.

“Call me when our guests arrive.”, he gives out a laugh before excusing himself to his room that was behind the stairs that lead to the first floor where the remaining four guest rooms were situated. 

The room wasn’t as special as you would think, it was instead mostly similar to the other guests bedroom, just a little more used. The walls were painted a light shade of brown, somewhere around beige, wooden floor like the whole place, a loose pair of curtains with little sunflowers drawn over them covering the single window of the room, a queen size bed with white bed sheets in the middle of the room and a small wooden cupboard with few posters from his childhood hanging on it, was filled with the few personal or necessary things he brought back from New York.

Taking off his sweater and sweatpants he moves towards the cupboard to find some sort of shirt and pants to look a bit more presentable in case someone does show up. He did dress up everyday and pretended to look ready and excited even though it was pretty obvious that this town didn’t have many guests. The ones they did have would mostly stay for a few hours before taking off again.

He puts on a pair of balck pants and takes a white button up shirt in consideration when he hears a loud voice from outside. It seemed like someone had fallen down and he rushed outside to check on Mick bare chest with the shirt in his hands. 

Instead he finds someone almost on the floor, a bag slinging around their arm, with their back facing him as they fumbled to close the door.

“I’m so sorry, I just tripped and fell through the door and it just…”, the guy turns around to match Cas’ eyes and for a moment he just stands there looking at him with his mouth hanging open, before a smirk crawls it’s way on his lips, “Well that’s a nice way to greet your guests.”

Castiel looks down at himself to acknowledge the lack of clothing on his behalf and quickly decides to put the shirt on as their very eminent guest made their way up to him instead of the reception desk.

He notices the splatter of freckles around his face and the bright green eyes with crinkles around them as his lips turned up in a lopsided smile and for a second he forgets how to breathe.

“Hi, I’m Dean Winchester.”


	3. Inner Monologue

_“Would you answer these same questions if it was someone else,  
Or is it exclusively only for them?”_

It would be stupid to say something along the lines of _god, you’re beautiful_ to someone he has only met a few seconds ago, but it wasn’t a lie. Dean Winchester was beautiful and Castiel didn’t know how to comprehend that and so he fell short of words, having Mick to jump in.

“Welcome to The Watchtower.”, he turns around to look at Mick who stood behind the receptionist desk with a sweet, professional smile.

But Castiel could still feel Dean’s eyes being fixated on him and it makes him uncomfortable. He clears his throat and looks back at Dean, “What can we do for you, Mr. Winchester.”

Dean laughs, “First of all, don’t call me that.”

“I’m sorry, did I get your name wrong?”, he tilts his head in confusion.

“No. It was right but it just sounds really professional and formal.”, Dean says.

“Well, you are our guest here.”, Castiel has a perfect smile painted on his face even though this man was confusing him like no one before.

They’ve had to deal with a couple of weird guests, some were too noisy, some were too complaining, some would try to give them a hundred advice and suggestions about how to make this place look more presentable, some would ask for them to be their tour guides and some were just mean. But one thing they all had in common was that they had huge egos and expected to be treated like royalties and now for someone to come and say that they don’t want them to be professional was a bit strange.

“Yes but please just call me Dean.”, he smiles.

Castiel nods slightly before taking the conversation further, “Okay, _Dean_ what can we do for you?”

“Well, I’m here for a couple of months and was wondering if you could give me a place to stay.”, Dean’s smile was the cheekiest and the most contagious one he has ever seen.

There’s a moment of silence in between when he realizes that they've been staring at each other and it doesn’t break until once again Mick is the one to clear his throat in the back.

“We would love to have you here, if you could just check in.”, Mick says suggestively asking Dean to make his way to the desk and do the necessary to get the room.

And Dean follows, a bag slung on his shoulder and heavy boots crunching the floor beneath him.

Castiel stares at his back awkwardly as he fills out the details, completely unaware of what they should do right now. Should he go back to his room? Should he help Mick? Should he leave for his everyday scheduled breakfast with Kelly and let Mick handle this?

The endless chain of thoughts start pestering his mind like always. The voices inside his head get loud and he wants them to shut up. It was about 3 months ago when he learned that while hearing voices can be a symptom of some types of mental health problems, hearing their own thoughts in their head is actually quite a common experience. And in technical terms it’s called _inner monologue_. Apparently after a research it was proved that the average frequency of inner speaking across those who took part in the research, at 23%, masks a huge range: from 100% which basically meant that a lot of people in this world hear their thoughts almost all the time and Castiel was one of them. Even though he has always had this inner monologue and it was quite a normal thing it didn’t mix very well with overthinking. His mind would be filled with his inner monologue speaking out all those thoughts to him dragging him far away from reality for bits and pieces of time period here or there.

Like right now.

“Cas?”, Mick’s voice anchors him back down to the lounge of their b&b, “You mind showing Dean his room?”

“Oh um”, his eyes flicker between Dean and Mick before he decides to set them on Mick, “I was gonna go to meet Kelly.”

“Oh come on, how long is a room tour gonna take?”, Dean looks at him expectantly and he has no choice but to comply. After all, Dean was their guest.

He takes Dean’s bag from him in a quick stride and politely asks him to follow him up the stairs. They walk through the small stretch of hallway to the room in the farthest corner. When they enter the room it’s almost similar to Castiel’s own room. Minus the posters and the curtains being a bright shade of white. The window was facing the lake and provided a fairly good view of the watchtower along the shore. It was indeed his favourite room in this place and he has been kind of thinking of shifting up here. Well, now, maybe after Dean leaves.

After placing his bag on the bed, he turns around to face Dean, who was busy examining the room with a judgemental look on his face. And he hopes that he won’t ask to leave now after seeing the place, because to be honest, it wasn’t really in a great condition. It wasn’t like the place was falling apart or anything, it was just plain, old and boring. 

But of all the things Castiel was expecting Dean to say, the conversation flows in a different direction, “So, who’s Kelly?”

“She’s a friend.”, he answers with a small smile.

“Like a friend friend or a girlfriend?”, firstly Cas thinks that he’s probably just joking by asking this but when he looks at Dean his face, it doesn’t have even a slightest trace of smile.

Cas shakes his head in a ‘no’, “She’s just a friend.”

Dean simply nods.

“Well then, I’ll leave you to it. If you need anything whatsoever, you can just call Mick.”, he claps his hands together awkwardly and starts walking out of the room when Dean calls out to him again.

“Do you ever think about repainting this place?”, another question which once again takes him by surprise. 

Literally no one ever asks so many and so random questions.

“I don’t know. Probably.”, Cas shrugs after giving a somewhat diplomatic answer, trying to not sound rude or dismissive in any way.

Dean nods with a small smile and he just stays there watching him, waiting for him to ask something else but when he turns around to enter the bathroom, Cas decides to take his leave.

It had been a long time since he had any sort of conversation that involved more than an exchange of four sentences with anyone other than Mick or Kelly. And by what he has gathered from today’s experience he understood that Dean Winchester had a mouth like his inner monologue, full of random thoughts and something that would never stop.


	4. A Cup Of Coffee

_“Some people just happen to have that spark, that energy, that something special,  
to make the world change around them in a snap of fingers.”_

Castiel was late.

By the time he reached Kelly’s house it was almost 8 am, so no wonder he found Kelly sitting on her porch in an oversized blue cardigan over her plain white dress in the chilly weather of the day, just waiting for him to arrive.

She gives him a very warm and welcoming hug like every single day and quickly ushers him inside, under the warmth of the small but most adequately comfortable home. As Kelly disappears in the kitchen, probably to get their coffees, he makes his way to the small couch in the living room, getting comfortable in his usual spot.

“I’m sorry for being late, we had a guest.”, he explains while taking off his jacket and placing it on his lap.

“It’s alright.”, she says with her usual sweet smile as she makes her way back in the room with two cups of coffee. One with milk and the other without it. 

She takes a seat by Cas’ side and hands him the one without milk and in his usual black mug with the letter _C_ carved into it, the same as Kelly’s mug which had her own initials on it. 

Castiel still remembers the September when she had come to visit him in New York about 3 years ago and brought these cups for them, saying that even though he didn’t really visit her in Hope and go on long bike rides and watch the birds together anymore, the least they could do was have these mugs as a small testament of their friendship. It would be a blatant lie if he said he didn’t feel bad for not being able to spend time with her as much as they used to anymore but the thought of going to Hope just made him feel scared out of his wits. Because he was sure that if he did go there, which was a big if, his father would try to make him stay. And it wasn’t like he couldn’t say ‘no’ to him anymore, he just didn’t want to face all that pressure on him again.

When he returned back home last year, he brought that mug with him and soon with all of their early morning coffees, it became more part of Kelly’s house than his own.

“So, who’s this guest?”, Kelly asks, criss-crossing her legs to sit more comfortably.

“Probably just someone passing through town.”, he takes a sip of his coffee.

“You didn’t ask him?”

“No, not really.”, he shrugs casually before adding a little extra piece of information, “He doesn’t like being called sir or anything professional like that.”

“That’s a new one.”, she laughs.

“He also asks a lot of questions. Random questions.”

“Uh huh.”, when he looks up to match Kelly’s eyes, they’re full of curiosity and he knows what it’s about.

“Why are you looking at me like that?”, he tilts his head lightly to which Kelly just shrugs but he knows what it’s about, “I told you not to psychoanalyse me.”

“I’m not psychoanalysing you.”, she tries to defend herself but he knows it’s not true. In fact, he’s very well aware that this whole _come, have coffee with me_ charade was a way for Kelly to make him talk about how he was feeling or whatever you wanna call it, since, even though he knew she was a trained professional therapist, he really wasn’t ready for that.

“Kelly...”, he gives her a warning look.

“Fine. At least tell me what’s he like?”

“Um”, he brings the coffee mug to his lips, taking a sip of the hot brew, “He’s about my height. Wears heavy boots and flannels. Also, he has green eyes. Very green. Freckles. Really pouty lips.”

“Why were you looking at his lips?”, she asks with a smirk on her lips.

“They were on his face. I was looking at his face!”, he defends himself.

Kelly laughs, “Sure, Cas.”

He punches Kelly light on her knees as they drift off in some other conversation comfortably enough. 

He stays at Kelly’s place for about two hours before finally taking his leave. Honestly, it didn’t matter anymore why Kelly started this tradition of regular morning coffee dates but it felt good. After all, Kelly was his best friend from as long as he can remember. Talking to her would never be a bad option. 

It takes him about 20 minutes to walk back to The Watchtower with him stopping in between to get a cheesecake for Mick as compensation for how he behaved towards him in the morning. No matter how much he tried to act like he didn’t care about anything, Mick and Kelly meant a lot to him. Infact, he could go as far as saying that they were the only people who meant something to him.

But when he actually returns back, surprisingly, Mick is nowhere to be seen in the lobby or the kitchen. He stands in the hallway by the stairs wondering where he might’ve disappeared off to because this has literally never happened before. Even when there would be no guests, he would never leave without leaving at least a message.

“Mick?”, he calls out, facing nowhere in particular.

And almost instantly he hears his voice call out to him, “Hey, I’m up here, come on!”

Castiel scrunches his brows in confusion before following the voice up the stairs eventually leading him up towards Dean’s room.

Of all the things he would expect to see, he certainly didn’t expect Mick and Dean sitting on the floor with about a hundred paint palettes in their hands.

“What’s happening here?”, he asks as he steps in the room, grabbing both of the boys’ attention.

“Hey, um..”, Dean trails off.

“Castiel. My name’s Castiel.”, he pauses for a second before continuing, “But you can call me Cas.”

“Cool.”, Dean smiles enthusiastically, “You should come here and help us pick a color, Cas.”

“What are we picking colors for?”, he asks before taking a seat by them on the floor.

“For this place.”, Dean nods, “I mean, you said that you wanted to paint this place, so let’s do it.”

“What?”, Cas blurts out in shock, “Like yes we do want to paint but, not like, right now.”

“Why not? If you’ve a good idea then you should go for it. Why wait another day?”, Dean smiles once again, a hundred crinkles forming around his eyes which once again makes it difficult to say _no_ to. And so he turns towards Mick for assistance, hoping that maybe he would take his side and go against Dean’s stupid idea.

But instead Mick goes the complete opposite way, “He’s right, Cas.”

There’s a moment of silence between them as he looks between Mick and Dean for a minute, hoping to find a way out of his extremely fun activity they have planned now but unfortunately, he sees none, resulting in him agreeing with them, “Sure, I guess.”


	5. First Walk

_”To face the questions that have been denied by the humane,  
is to take a step ahead in the direction of improvement.”_

After having Dean Winchester live with them for a week, he realized that it wasn’t as hard as he expected it to be. 

Dean mostly woke up around the time Cas came back from Kelly’s place in the morning and he never bothered to have breakfast here. He would just get up, get ready and leave for a few hours to god knows where. Sometimes he would be back by lunch or sometimes it would take him until dinner to come back. But he always came back.

He wondered if he was some adventure buff who rolls through towns to do unnecessarily dangerous things for thrills and leaves when they’ve tried it all. It seemed to be the only explanation that popped up in his head to go with the impulsive, happy-go-lucky and highly hyperactive personality of his. 

When he asked Mick and Cas to pick colors to repaint the b&b, he didn’t really expect for Dean to come back from his regular run with a bunch of painters with the exact shade of brown they had picked for the lobby.

And honestly, Castiel was furious about that. He didn’t see the need of painting the place in the first place but decided to go with the charade for the sake of avoiding any sort of argument, hoping that Dean would leave the topic at just picking the colors. 

It was a horrendous day, to say the least, with all the arguments among the crowd. In the end, after being singled out against Mick, Dean and the bunch of painters, he gave in. 

Resulting into the last three days being completely wasted in painting the walls and normally, Cas wouldn’t care about that, but Dean as the social animal that he was basically dragged him out to _actively_ take part in the job.

_”Dean, stop. I have no problem with you all painting my walls now what else do you want from me?”_

_“I want you to paint with us.”_

_“I’m not a painter.”_

_“No shit, Sherlock. I’m not one either but it’s something new and fun which I firmly believe that everyone should try their hand at.”_

_“Well, I don’t.”_

_“Come on, Castiel. You always work on the same schedule like in clockwork motion. Have you ever even had a thought of doing something fun?”_

_“I do fun stuff.”_

_“Yeah? Like what?”_

_“I go on early morning walks on the shore every single day.”_

And that was the downfall of him when he didn’t even realize it because on today’s bright morning Dean decided to wake up and join him on the walk. 

“So, I have a question for you.”, he prompts, as soon as they reach the shore and start walking towards the watchtower like he normally does.

“Of course you do.”, he rolls his eyes, not looking at Dean, “What is it?”

“Have you always lived here?”, they contemplate how much details they could provide him with without this conversation going in a direction that would be difficult to steer away from.

“No. I was born and raised here but then I left for college.”, their eyes wander towards the lake while answering the question.

“Where did you go?”, another question.

“New York.”, he takes a pause, “Lived there for seven years.”

Dean hums in acknowledgement and he hopes that this was the last of his ridiculous questions for the day. But then again, if one thing they’ve learned about Dean in the past few days is that he wasn't the kind to prefer silence filling the gaps of time.

And so he speaks up again, “Why did you come back here?”

“My father passed away last year. Leaving this place in my name.”, he shrugs and expects another apology from some stranger about how they shouldn’t have pryed or that they’re sorry for whatever happened as if they had done something wrong.

But instead Dean poses another question, “You left New York to come and run a bed and breakfast in a shitty little town?”

He turns to match Dean’s eyes with utter confusion evident in his eyes because of all the things he had expected for him to say, _this_ was not it. 

It blows his mind how every conversation with Dean has been so unexpected and unpredictable for someone like Castiel, who has always been fairly good at reading people. 

“We should go back.”, he says, looking away from Dean to observe the watchtower standing in front of them in all it’s might.

“Fine, I’ll drop it.”, he throws his hands up in defense, turning to face the tower, “Let’s go up there.”

“No.”, Castiel answers almost immediately.

“Why not?”, Dean says in an accusatory tone, “Don’t you ever wanna go up there and see how it looks? How maybe for a fraction of second this town which is just cracks and pieces glued together looks perfect from those heights?”

_Yes, he didn’t._

_Because if he did, he would have to finally make peace with the fact that he was here._

“I said, no, Dean.”, he says strictly. 

Dean shakes his head disappointingly, “Man, what is up with you?”

“What the hell do you mean?”, his voice is oddly loud for the first time in months.

“I mean, when was the last time that you were genuinely happy about something? When you smiled in a way that reached your eyes? Or when you tried to do something that you’ve never done before?”, he stares at Dean dumbfoundedly as he continues to call him out. And it hurt because even though he knew that everyone wanted to ask Cas these questions, no one ever did and that’s what helped him pretend that everything was okay.

The water’s sound with the waves and birds singing far away from them filled the silence until Dean matched Cas’ eyes and said something that seemed to be the last straw, “When was the last time you lived?”


End file.
